David Lynch says he can no longer direct in-person due to health reasons. “I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not. It would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold,” he said in a recent interview for Sight & Sound, also revealing that he can “only walk a short distance” before he’s out of oxygen.
The legendary filmmaker, behind Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, said that for this reason it’s likely that he will no longer direct. “I would do it remotely if it comes to it,” Lynch said, however admitting, “I wouldn’t like that so much.”
“Yes, I have emphysema from my many years of smoking,” Lynch wrote on X yesterday (August 5), warning about the effects that smoking has had on his body. “I have to say that I enjoyed smoking very much, and I do love tobacco – the smell of it, lighting cigarettes on fire, smoking them – but there is a price to pay for this enjoyment, and the price for me is emphysema.”
He added: “I have now quit smoking for over two years. Recently I had many tests and the good news is that I am in excellent shape except for emphysema. I am filled with happiness, and I will never retire.”
Lynch has recently released a surreal music video from his forthcoming joint album, Cellophane Memories with Crystabell, an animated short set in a strange Backrooms featuring a pulsing stormcloud and a masked man with a detachable face, which is by all accounts, very Lynchian.
While this might suggest an end to the filmmaker’s real-world creations, he said that he’s still “hopeful” that his 2010 screenplay Antelope Don’t Run No More will make it to the big screen. “We don’t know what the future will bring,” he added.
As for his music career, “David and I are already working on more music,” Crystabell told Dazed in a recent interview. Having already directed another music video for the pair’s track “Sublime Eternal Love” as David Lynch Theatre, featuring the singer, it’s likely Lynch will continue to create videos in a smaller capacity. But as with all things Lynchian, this too remains a mystery.
This piece was originally published on August 5, and was updated on August 6